


How to have a successful date

by Phantje



Series: How to ... [5]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Amazingphil - Freeform, Awkwardness, Cute, Dan Howell - Freeform, Getting Together, M/M, Nervousness, Phan Fluff, Phil Lester - Freeform, Sorta Surprise Date, danisnotonfire - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8240639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantje/pseuds/Phantje
Summary: Dan has trouble keeping calm when Phil tells him about a business dinner they have to attend. What Dan doesn't know is that Phil only wants to ensure that Dan accompanies him to a restaurant to have dinner together, without additional company. 
A very Dan and Phil story about a successfull (in parts) date.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I do have Internet in Denmark. Don't know if that's good as it feels like I have written a bunch of crap. Let me now what you think *smh* Comments and kudos are more than welcome :) <3

Today was a big day. Well, some would never consider as anything apart from normal and some might not even realise that days as a concept could vary in excitement you could draw from them. No, some might not see that and who was Dan to tell them off after all “days” were a very much human build concept – the cycle of the sun and moon making it no more than convenient.  
Okay. Dan could see what people meant when they said that he was likely to dwell on unimportant things when he was nervous. For those in doubt: Dan was certainly extremely nervous. He was nervous because today was a big day, or a day which he interpreted as big. Once again you could always see two sides as there were surely people that would interpret a day with a business dinner in the evening as standard, others as a normal thing to happen and then again there were surely people (like Dan) who were thrown out of their shows by the mere thought of it.  
Right. Losing the track or rather wandering off with his thoughts twice in a row underlined the severity of his nervousness to Dan. He buried his head in his arms for a few seconds. Than he sat up bolt like and sighed deeply. He was making all this fuss because this evening he would have a business dinner with at least one stranger and Phil. Not even the circumstance that Dan knew how absurd this was helped him to tame his nervousness. Dan sighed again and looked around his bedroom. It was messy as usual but what did not fit into the picture? Dan looked around and with one look at his computer he noticed horrified that it was seven o’clock, in the morning. It must have been years ago when he had been voluntarily awake at this hour. He did have to get up at even worse hours to catch an occasional flight but lying in his room with no sign of anything to happen soon at seven o’clock in the morning was unusual, if not worrying.  
Dan pushed his covers aside and swung his legs out of the bed. He sat in that position for a couple of minutes. Apparently Dan’s mind being wide awake did not guarantee an equally quick movement of the remaining parts of his body. When Dan was positive that his legs would move when he told them to he stood up and stretched, taking care not to let out a dinosaur similar noise. Phil was still asleep in the room next door, no need worrying or even waking him to this unhealthy hour. After letting all the bones in his body jump back into their predestined place Dan scuffled through his room to the windows to let some light aluminate the chaos. Nearly reaching his destination, Dan was forced to stop, bight his tongue to prevent another inhuman noise and jump on one foot. The pain he was experiencing reminded him strongly of the one he suffered a lot when being younger when he hadn’t tidied his room after playing, something that lead to him stepping on lego bricks with every step he made. After the pain disappeared mostly, Dan looked around and squinted his eyes. He was sure that he had no lego in his room but what on earth could evoke a similar pain in his foot? The answer to that was quickly found: stepping on an earring had the same effect on human feet as legos had. Good to know.  
Dan grabbed the earring, opened the blinds and sighed when he saw how bad the situation really was in his room. Even though tidying wasn’t one of Dan’s favourite things to do, he knew what he had to do when he wanted to restore the symmetry that enabled him to lead an organised life. Dan knew he had to tidy and he was facing the task bravely.  
Whenever Dan was actually moving around pieces of clothing or other belongings of his he was actually progressing rather quickly. The only problem was that Dan was actually more sitting and staring than moving. Whenever he found something which reminded him of anything he sat down on the spot and thought long and without any result. The pieces that usually affected him to stop doing what he was and stare had no impact on him today funnily enough. Today Dan was only distracted by pieces he linked, no matter how complicated, to Phil and not those that reminded him of his childhood. The first thing to make Dan stop working was the set of clothes he had worn the day before. He had discarded them onto the floor right after rushing into his room and before jumping into bed. He wasn’t that quick normally but that day had been special. It had obviously started like any day but had developed into quite something.  
Three days ago Dan hadn’t done anything apart from eating and scrolling through tumblr. Around eight o’clock in the evening Phil had suddenly launched an xbox controller into Dan’s lab. Dan had obviously yelped and nearly thrown his laptop away as a reaction.  
“Calm down.” Phil had chuckled.  
“Funny for you to say.” Dan had answered with a wildly beating heart.  
“I only threw it because you weren’t reacting.”  
“Would you like a remote control against your head each time you missed a word?” Dan asked and slammed his computer shut.  
“Uh… that’d be a no for me, thanks.” Phil said and smiled.  
“Funny.” Dan said and glared at Phil.  
“Okay, I’m sorry. Would you like to play Donkey Kong with me now?” Phil asked and pouted.  
“Alright.” Dan said and had to pretend really hard that those stupid blue eyes of Phil’s did not have any effect on him whatsoever. “But only if you concentrate for once.”  
“Ah, can’t promise that.” Phil said with an apologetic smile. Dan had shaken his head then but a few minutes later he realised that Phil had said the truth.  
“Just try to concentrate, would you?” Dan asked and pressed pause.  
“I am.”  
“You are not.”  
“Just this once.”  
“I caught you at it for at least the fourth time now. You are the reason why we already missed two boxes. Do you hear that Phil? Two boxes. Those boxes are important!”  
Phil chuckled. Dan groaned. “What is it now?”  
“I think it’s funny how serious you take this!” Phil explained.  
“You suggested we play this…” Dan started but Phil interrupted him: “Right. Yes. I’m sorry. I will give my best to concentrate as hard as I can. There are a lot of distracting thoughts on my mind right now but I promise I will try.”  
Dan nodded dumbfounded and reset the level. All of the sudden Dan was the one with the lacking concentration. He was not necessarily a jealous person but when Phil had openly said that he was elsewhere with his thoughts Dan could not pretend that pang of jealousy did not exist. The worst of all was that the unnecessary jealousy Dan felt prevented him from asking Phil what exactly he was thinking about. When the jealousy wasn’t this strong Dan managed to ask and it usually turned out to be nothing but like this Dan was left alone with his thoughts which quickly became a lot more than a simple pang of jealousy.  
“Dan? Concentrate!” Phil said, mocking Dan’s voice from earlier.  
“Right sorry. Yes. Where are we?” Dan asked and pressed a few buttons.  
“I paused the game.” Phil said and raised an eyebrow.  
“Oh. Right. What did you do that for?”  
“What’s wrong?” Phil asked and put his controller aside.  
“Nothing.” Dan answered quickly.  
“This is not going to be an existential crisis, is it?” Phil asked concerned.  
“No. No. No!” Dan said, shaking his head.  
“Good?” Phil said insecurely.  
“Sorry. We can go on now.” Dan said and nodded, mainly to try to discard the annoying thoughts.  
“Okay. And concentrate! We need those boxes!” Phil said, still mocking Dan.  
“Right. Yes, that’s funny.” Dan said and rolled his eyes. Phil chuckled and Dan immediately joined, hating himself a little for showing no power of restrain in regards to Phil’s laughter.  
The next level appeared to be completing itself. Dan and Phil were both concentrating for once and therefore successfully collecting all the boxes.  
“Well done.” Phil said and nodded approvingly.  
“Who gave you the right to be surprised at that?” Dan asked and frowned.  
“Stop it, silly.” Phil said and nudged Dan’s knee. Dan sucked in a breath and didn’t dare to exhale because he feared Phil would notice that one single touch of Phil made Dan’s body run riot, after three years of successfully hiding a crush Dan couldn’t let it come to an end because of that.  
“Should we play another level?” Dan asked.  
“We can. But I have something to ask you.” Phil said.  
“What?” Dan asked, heart already beating annoyingly fast.  
“Oh it’s just… You know Sue, right?”  
“No?” Dan asked and noticed horrified how jealous he had sounded. He hoped that this was one of the occasions were Phil was deaf.  
“Sue … Nope, forgot her name. Well what I wanted to ask if I… I mean we have time on Saturday to have some dinner?” Phil asked awkwardly.  
“How should I know if Sue is free on Saturday? And on that note shouldn’t you know if you’re free and not me?” Dan asked, unsuccessful in the attempt of hiding his jealousy.  
“What? No! Sue wants to have dinner with the two of us to talk about business matters.” Phil said and Dan could see him blush.  
“Oh. Both of us?” Dan asked.  
“Yes, like a fancy dinner somewhere in town.”  
“Fancy?” Dan asked and blushed, willing his mind not to wander off to an alternate reality where Phil had asked this solely for Dan and where this dinner was a date and note a business thing.  
“Yes. Not too bad. We won’t feel out of place there… or that’s what Sue told me.” Phil said and Dan failed to notice how awkward Phil was behaving.  
“Okay. But it’s a business dinner right?” Dan asked, wanting the voice inside his head to be quiet.  
“Ye…yes. A business dinner.” Phil said and once again Dan was too busy dealing with his inner voice as that he could notice how bitter Phil sounded. “Next level?” Phil asked suddenly.  
“Sure.” Dan said, already knowing that he won’t succeed in concentrating with that annoying demon inside his head.  
A few minutes later Phil realised as well that there was something off about Dan. “Dan? You there?” he asked jokingly.  
“Right, yes.” Dan said and blushed.  
“And with that you mean no.” Phil said slowly.  
“Probably.” Dan said.  
“This is still no existential crisis right?”  
“Still no existential crisis.” Dan confirmed. “I think I still better go to bed now.”  
“Okay. Won’t be bad, even though other people do different things on a Friday night.” Phil said and laughed.  
“You suggest I go out clubbing now?” Dan asked laughed as well. Phil was just about to answer something when Dan shouted: “What do you mean on a Friday night?”  
“Pardon?”  
“What day do we have today?”  
“Friday.”  
“That means tomorrow is Saturday!” Dan shouted.  
“Yes. That’s right.” Phil said and nodded slowly, being a little scared of Dan in that moment.  
“No, that’s totally fine with me. Totally fine. That means the dinner is tomorrow. No, that’s cool.” Dan said and swallowed. “Like I said I better go to bed. Night.” And with that he practically stormed out of the room. In his bedroom he quickly got out of his clothes and jumped into bed. He swiftly pulled the covers over his head when the realisation of how he had just behaved washed over him.  
Which sends us right back to Dan sitting on the floor the next morning. Dan shook his head and got up, not feeling his legs. After being able to walk through the room rather than wobbling Dan opened the door and threw the clothes onto a pile of laundry. Dan slowly closed his door again and checked the time, noticing that two hours had already passed. He also noticed that he hadn’t yet tidied that much and quickly set to work again. But just as quickly as he had started working he stopped again. Dan had found one of Phil’s socks underneath his desk – however that found its way there – and was now sitting uncomfortably propped up the desk thinking about Phil. This time it took Dan a full hour to find his way back into reality. To be fair the things Dan thought about were also real. He thought about all the little things he got to learn about Phil in the past years, all the habits he learned to love. The things he pretended to hate because openly loving them would display his great love for Phil. The crush had quickly developed into serious love and not a thing Dan could ever hope to forget and momentarily it also looked like a thing he would never be able overcome. But that was something Dan had already accepted, just like he accepted Phil who left his socks everywhere, ate Dan’s cereal, used more towels than the average person, balanced his contact lenses things on the tab and was 80% of the day deaf. All these things a normal person ought to hate were dear to Dan’s heart, which exposed Dan’s real nature of a Phil obsessed person. And only the fact that Dan hated himself a little for how unconditionally he loved Phil enabled him to pretend to hate Phil’s habits.  
After thinking about this and similar things for not less than an hour Dan’s back started to seriously ache and Dan was forced to leave dream-land and return to reality. Dan was not happy with his escapades so for the rest of the tidying he forced himself to think about nothing. Trying to keep his mind blank also resulted in being unable to hear anything apart from the blood pumping through Dan’s veins. That was why Dan nearly had a heart attack when he suddenly saw Phil standing in the doorframe when he turned around.  
“Heavens!” Dan screamed and suddenly the sounds of his environment washed over him which made Dan fall onto his bed.  
“Morning to you too.” Phil said and yawned. He was wearing his glasses and looked ridiculously cute in Dan’s eyes.  
“Morning.” Dan said and blushed. The blush deepened when Phil stretched which made his shirt ride up and reveal parts of his torso.  
“What have you been doing?” Phil asked and yawned again.  
“Tidying?” Dan asked and gestured pointlessly through his room.  
“Why?” Phil asked and leaned against the doorframe, closing his eyes. Dan’s heart made an unnecessary jump at that and Dan had to tare his gaze away.  
“Nervous.” Dan mumbled.  
“Sorry? Don’t you remember I’m deaf?” Phil asked with a lazy smile. Dan tentatively looked back at him and saw that Phil’s eyes were still closed and that he practically snuggled into the doorframe now. Never before in Dan’s eventful life had he been jealous of a piece of wood.  
“Nervous.” Dan said more clearly this time.  
“Why?” Phil asked and opened his eyes. If he was surprised to find Dan staring at him, he didn’t show it. “Is it because of this evening?” Phil asked. “If you don’t want to go I can canc… call Sue.”  
“No. I do want to go.”  
“Do you?” Phil asked.  
“Of course!” Dan shouted enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. “I mean… Yes, I do. It’s important we go, it’s business, serious business.”  
“Right.” Phil said rather shortly. “I’ll leave you to you tidying.” He said and left.  
Dan was confused but he decided it would be best if just continued tidying as Phil suggested to kill off some time. When Dan finished cleaning his room he saw that it was only half past ten so he saw no other possibility as to just continue cleaning the whole house, starting with doing the laundry. Phil kept surprising Dan over the day with appearing every now and then, giving Dan quite a few frights but he never stayed to say much.  
After taking a shower in the late afternoon and looking for some rather fancy clothes Dan had the suspicion that even though he had been the one to be visibly frightened by the idea of the dinner, he was also the one who was calmer about it now or rather more willing to go. The last time Phil had surprised Dan while he was busy he had seemed rather reluctant when speaking about the dinner. He had come to give Dan the details and after throwing them into the room he left again. Dan was confused but he decided even if Phil was not going to enjoy the evening he could reward himself for the hard work he had done that day. So Dan picked some nice clothes, looking alright was never bad, and took his time with getting ready. Everything was calm until Dan couldn’t find his straighteners. After looking for them for quite a while, knowing it was pointless as he hadn’t seen them while ranging earlier that day, Dan sighed and went over to Phil’s room. He knocked politely but opened the door right away, less politely.  
“Phil? Did you take my straighteners?” Dan asked.  
Phil was sitting on his bed and jumped when Dan walked into the room. Now he was practically staring at Dan with an open mouth.  
“You look amazing.” Phil whispered.  
Dan blushed and quickly said: “Phil? My straighteners?”  
Phil jumped up at this and came closer. “Don’t.”  
“Don’t what?” Dan asked. His breath hitched and he tried to cover it up with a cough.  
“Don’t straighten your hair.”  
“Oh and why is that?” Dan asked.  
Phil smiled and pulled Dan properly into the room at his hand. He positioned him in front of the mirror. “That’s why.”  
“What?” Dan asked and turned to leave. Phil grabbed his arm once more and gently turned Dan’s head towards the mirror.  
“Look at you.”  
“I did.”  
“No, properly.”  
“What am I supposed to see?” Dan asked, getting scared of this game.  
“What I see.”  
“And what is that supposed to be.”  
“Someone who looks amazing.” Phil said bluntly.  
“Right, shall I move so that we can properly see you?” Dan asked. Directly afterwards he would have liked to bite off his tongue. He had just openly admitted how handsome he thought Phil was. Only when realising that Phil had also openly said how good he thought Dan looked, Dan stopped wishing for the ground to swallow him. However once that feeling stopped he realised just what Phil had said and his cheeks immediately turned crimson.  
“Funny.” Phil said dryly.  
“Can I have my straightener please?” Dan asked quietly.  
“Do you feel like you need them?” Phil asked back.  
“To restore some of my courage, yes.” Dan answered.  
“Do you really?” Phil groaned.  
“Yes? It’s not like I steal your contact lenses or anything.” Dan said and turned away from the mirror.  
“And why would you be doing that?” Phil asked.  
“You look cute wearing your glasses.” Dan mumbled.  
“Yeah right, this game only works when you are not lying, you know?” Phil asked and laughed.  
“I am not lying.”  
“Sure.” Phil laughed. Dan stopped arguing because this would only have bad consequences for him, and asked one last time for his straighteners. Phil handed them over with a small: “Pity.” As soon as Dan held his straighteners he rushed back into his room. While straightening his hair Dan forbid himself to think about what happened in Phil’s room in too much detail. If he would he would fall into something he couldn’t escape of soon enough.  
About ten minutes later Dan heard Phil leave his room. After waiting for five minutes Dan left his room and joined Phil in the lounge. Phil was not looking when Dan entered so Dan had time to compose himself after seeing Phil wear a far too well fitting shirt. Dan took a deep breath and let himself fall down next to Phil.  
“You ready?” Phil asked.  
“Yep.”  
“Good. We can call a taxi then.” Phil said and grabbed his phone, which started ringing suddenly.  
“Hello?” Phil said after answering the call. “Sue? Sorry what? I’ll put you on loud speaker, just a sec.”  
“Hello there Phil.” Dan heard an unfamiliar voice.  
“Hello. What’s the matter?” Phil asked friendly.  
“I’m at the restaurant right now and I just received a call from my chef demanding me to come into the office.” Sue said and sounded disappointed.  
“What on earth could be more important than us?” Phil asked and laughed.  
“I’m really sorry guys, I have to leave.” Sue said.  
“Right, you won’t manage to stay for a few drinks if we leave right now?” Phil asked.  
“Not even that I’m afraid.”  
“Oh. Okay. Thanks for calling.” Phil said and sounded nervous suddenly.  
“That’s alright. Have a nice evening! Bye.” Sue called and the line went silent.  
“What should we do now?” Dan asked, slightly disappointed that all this procrastinating hard work was for nothing.  
“We could still go to that restaurant. I mean we have got reserved places.” Phil said carefully.  
“Sure. I could do with something proper to eat.” Dan said and smiled. Internally he was screaming on the top of his voice, now this looked very much like a date.  
“Okay. I’ll call the taxi.” Phil said and left the room.  
A few seconds later the doorbell rang. Dan was too far up in the clouds that he didn’t notice how absurd that was. “Coming!” he shouted and joined Phil had the front door.  
Dan had a lot to do with trying to calm his own nerves that he did not realise Phil being a nervous wreck next to him. Not even when Phil stumbled several times on his way into the restaurant did Dan notice anything.  
“Do you have a reservation?” a waiter asked Phil.  
“Yes.”  
“Name?”  
“Lester.”  
“Follow me.” The waiter said. “Table for two.”  
Before Dan could process what the waiter had said he already disappeared and left Dan speechless. Phil ushered Dan to sit down, now Dan finally noticed how nervous he looked.  
“Wait a second.” Dan said with a mean grin.  
“Yes?” Phil asked and Dan could see his hand trembling.  
“Table for two? Reservation for Lester? Phil, what is going on?” Dan asked with a bright smile. Phil however did not see that smile because he was busy fumbling with his serviette.  
“I… Well. Sue cancelled.” Phil said and pathetically cleared his throat.  
“Phil.” Dan said gently.  
“Yes?” Phil looked up, ill at ease.  
“Just pretend to be normal for a second okay?”  
“Okay?”  
“Okay, considering the circumstances normal people might classify this” Dan gestured through the restaurant “as a date.”  
“Would they?” Phil asked, calming down as he realised that Dan was smiling at him.  
“They would, yes.” Dan grinned broadly.  
“I think I’m normal too.” Phil said and blushed slightly.  
“So you would say this is a date too?” Dan asked, raising his eyebrows.  
“Ye… Yes, I would.”  
“And why, for heaven’s sake couldn’t you just ask me?” Dan groaned.  
“Pardon?”  
“You made all this fuss, probably forcing a poor lady to call you to cancel a never existing business dinner… And playing with my nerves on top of that.” Dan said and pretended to be exhausted, okay, he did not have to pretend a lot.  
“What do you mean “playing with your nerves”?” Phil asked, regaining a bit of his usual courage, or rather ability to talk to Dan.  
“You made me tell myself over and over again that it was not in fact a date but a business dinner when it had been a date all along! I call that playing with my nerves!” Dan said and laughed.  
“Why would you have to tell yourself that it’s not a date?” Phil asked.  
“Because I waited ages for you to ask?” Dan asked back now he cared no longer if he was revealing too much.  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“Because then it wouldn’t have been you who asked me.” Dan said and rolled his eyes.  
“Right.” Phil said and they went both quiet. “So you like this being a date?” Phil asked after a while.  
“I love it, Phil! How else would you explain the effort I made?” Dan asked.  
“Well you made that effort in expectancy of a business dinner.” Phil said raising his eyebrows.  
“… which is your fault, we already had that bit.” Dan said and smiled.  
“Okay, fair point.” Phil said and laughed. He then quickly hid behind his menu. Dan rolled his eyes and opened the menu lying in front of him. “Just one question before we order.” Phil said, looking up from behind his menu.  
“Okay.”  
“Do you like this? As a date I mean?” Phil asked and blushed. “I mean, you didn’t seem to happy when I first brought it up.”  
“For the last time Phil, that was when I thought it was going to be a business dinner not a date!”  
“Oh.”  
“So to answer your question: I do. I do like this date.” Dan said and smiled. “Just promise me one thing.” He added quickly.  
“Yes?” Phil asked tentatively.  
“Never write manual on ‘How to have a successful date’.” Dan said and smiled affectionately. “Playing with your boyfriend’s feelings is not a good way to introduce a date, even worse a first date!”  
“So boyfriends, huh?” Phil asked.  
“Focusing on the wrong bit!” Dan said quickly but he felt his cheeks heating up again. Now it was his turn to hide behind the menu.  
“Okay, I promise.” Phil said gently. Dan carefully peeped over the menu and saw Phil smiling widely at him.  
“You are unbelievable.” Dan muttered.  
“So are you.” Phil answered and it didn’t sound like an insult, just like Dan’s hadn’t.  
The first date turned out to be lovelier than anything Dan had ever experienced. When Phil opened the door to their apartment they had a bit of a discussion about rules of first dates.  
“We know each other’s ins and outs!” Phil complained.  
“But this is a first date so no kissing!” Dan said, the alcohol was helping him to stand up to Phil.  
“That’s…”  
“… how it is.” Dan said and smiled. Phil pouted. “Okay, let me tell you something. If you wake me with croissants tomorrow morning that might be considered a second date and the rules of a second date are different to those of a first, as everyone knows.” Dan smiled.  
“I’ll take you by the word.” Phil said and kissed Dan’s cheek.  
“Oi!”  
“Cheek is okay!” Phil called while running away from Dan.  
“Where does it say that?” Dan called back and fell against the closed door, smiling contently.  
“In the manual: ‘How to have a successful date’.” Phil called back, chuckling.  
“You turnip!” Dan shouted. “Phil can be very happy that he doesn’t know that I’m head over heels in love with him.” He muttered and made his way into his bedroom only to be woken up by an excitedly smiling Phil with croissants and coffee on a tray first thing the next morning.  
“What?” Dan asked stupidly.  
“Morning.” Phil said, put the tray onto Dan’s desk, went over to Dan and kissed him, just like that.  
“Morning.” Dan repeated with bright red cheeks.  
“You are so cute.” Phil sighed and left again after collecting the tray.  
“Wait a second! What is this about?” Dan called.  
“I’m not having breakfast in your room, it’s far too tidy!” Phil laughed. Dan sighed and decided that resettling into Phil’s bed for a day, or maybe even longer was not a bad prospect. He quickly grabbed his sheet and walked the few meters before he collapsed into Phil’s bed, being greeted by another kiss. No, not a bad prospect at all.


End file.
